The fourteen men who joined Kai and Harper outside the walls of Aria were a strange group.
A dozen of them wore the bright silver chainmail of the city watch, white capes swinging behind them. Over their chainmail armor, the soldiers wore dark, boiled leather, steel helms clutched at their sides.
Duke Odger had sent two of his own men on the journey, both of whom were at odds with the rest of the assembly. One of his men was massive, the other quite the opposite. The larger of the two was muscled and grim faced, with a massive battle axe strapped to his back. He wore the gold mail and gray cloak of Terrin—it seemed that he was some sort of a champion there. His snow-white skin seemed to be bunched into a scowl whenever Kai looked his way.
The first man's companion also wore gold mail, but seemed no more than a child in the large soldier's presence. He couldn't have been taller than Kai; although he looked to be in his thirties, he was skinny and had the build of someone half his age. A mop of brown hair covered his long, gaunt face and sullen eyes. A bow was slung across his back, knives at his belt.
Lord Canmore had seen them off at the other side of the wall, wishing them good fortune and promising honor and riches, come their return. Kai hadn't taken the kind words to heart—the only person Canmore cared for in the group was Harper. The rest...he likely did not care whether they lived or died.
The entire party was mounted; the Arian soldiers sat atop massive gray warhorses while the Duke's men rode smaller, faster stallions. Kai rode Lunar, and Harper Dusty. Lunar had grown rather large and strong since being kept in the manor's stables, though she was still dwarfed by the warhorses surrounding her. An additional two horses had been brought to carry food.
They took the Green Path, a road that traveled nearly straight northeast.
"So, I take it that you're good at those?" Kai asked the lean, gaunt man, nodding his head toward the knives strapped to his side. It felt strange, talking to people so casually. People who weren't trying to get him to kill someone. Well, maybe these men did want him to kill someone, but this was different than it had been in Northshore. In any case, it would be days before they saw anything of note along the Green Path, perhaps even weeks. It couldn't hurt to get to know his companions along the way.
The man nodded with a smile that revealed yellow, crooked teeth. "Good? I'm the best in Ath," he said smugly. "Competed in Terrin a year back... I mopped the floor with all of those boys, I did."
Kai returned his smile, an expression that felt otherworldly and yet right at the same time. "Well, you haven't tried me yet. I'm Kai."
He nodded his acknowledgment. "Cory." He jabbed a finger toward the massive man who rode beside him. "Jean, my brother. He don't like to talk much, but he's nearly as good with that axe as I am with me knives."
Jean grunted. They did look similar, now that Kai looked more closely. The brothers shared the same sharp jawline and milk-white skin. Their faces held the same disinterested, mildly disgusted expressions.
Kai rode forward, past the two brothers and into the midst of the Arian soldiers. The treeline rose up ahead of them; before long they would be swallowed by the darkness of the forest.
The soldiers were common men, most of them wielding longswords and a dagger at their sides. But then, they couldn't be too common if they had been chosen for this journey; Lord Canmore had promised Aria's best men. Kai tried his best to remember their names, speaking to each of them as the hooves of his horse trod over the soggy underbrush of the forest.
Menelaus was young, no older than twenty, as were his closer companions, Eusien and Aesare. They came from Uband—Kai would have to ask them more about their continent during the journey.
Five of the men seemed disinclined to say any more than their names: Leandro, a middle aged man wearing an expression that was part annoyed and part bored, and Branson, a younger man who trembled like a sick child.
He had been at the siege, Kai guessed. Had seen or done something that made his own skin crawl.
Sean and Caleb were older men with grayed hair and wrinkled skin. Despite their age, there was something fierce about them that told Kai that they belonged in the group of fighters.
Timothy, the last man in the group of quiet soldiers, couldn't have been younger than thirty-five and had a strange fire in his eyes. A foolish eagerness for violence, Kai thought.
The last four men—Luke, Theo, Lewis and Alex—were lean and muscled, bows slung across their backs in addition to the swords at their sides.
Kai sighed, pulling Lunar to a steady trot beside Harper, near the back of the group. "Well, this is sure to be an exciting trip." His lips twisted slightly. "I can't wait to see Cory in action... He says that he's the best knife thrower on the continent."
Harper scoffed in disgust. "Boys are so competitive."
He raised a brow. "And you wouldn't want to show them that you're the best archer in all the lands?" Kai said, raising his arms dramatically. "I haven't seen you gloat about your talents, but we both know that you are no lady."
Harper smiled. "Perhaps not." She cleared her throat, face hardening. "Whether I'd like to or not, we have a mission to complete." Her voice dropped to hardly more than a whisper. "We could die on this journey... This is no time for petty competitions and shows of strength."
"Maybe you're right," Kai said, "but this road will be a long one—It couldn't hurt to get to know eachother better...even if that's through a little 'petty competition.'"
She splayed her arms with a sigh. "Well, if you insist on challenging Cory during this journey, at least make sure that you win."
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The first day yielded no clues as to how far away the army had gone. The group made camp in the forest, sleeping between trees and streams, atop dead leaves, rocks, and twigs. Although he had brought a tent, Kai didn't bother setting it up. He had grown used to the prickly feeling of a stone beneath him, and though it was not particularly comfortable, it made him feel happier somehow. Perhaps he had enjoyed his journey from Sleetshire to Aria—or perhaps anything that wasn't Northshore made him feel this way.
He had never felt any type of joy until he arrived at Ath, Kai realized—not really. Perhaps he had felt some excitement in Northshore after buying his sword or sweets, but it was quickly smothered by the guilt and fear that had always lived inside him. It was still there, that gnawing sensation, but it had lessened.
He sighed, staring up through a break in the forest's canopy. Stars blinked into existence, lighting the massive expanse of darkness that seemed to stare down at him, watchful eyes piercing through the night.
"Where do you think they came from?" He asked, eyes never leaving the sky as Harper considered his question, hands pillowed beneath her head as she gazed into the heavens.
"I don't know," she said after a moment. "Maybe there is some god, and they made the stars to protect us."
Kai considered her reply. How could those stars exist, so far away and yet so close, if not for a god? But then, that could be said of anything. He shook away the thought, transfixed by the beauty in the night sky. As he watched a shape popped into existence, made by the stars themselves. It looked like some sort of bear, if Kai concentrated and fixed his eyes upon only certain stars. The world would never cease to surprise him, he thought. How could such a beautiful place be inhabited by such monsters? How had he himself destroyed that beauty, staining it with blood? Kai's stomach turned when he thought back to the fate of Eelry and Larnwick. Humans had burned a town to the ground, slaughtering its inhabitants like fattened pigs. Kai's blood boiled at the memory. He would stop this army, as well as whoever commanded it. He would do whatever it took, to redeem himself and avenge the dead men, women and children that he had never had the chance to meet.
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The group rode at first light. Rivers snaked around them as Kai pulled Lunar into a trot. The landscapes had hardly changed since the beginning of the journey, which wasn't a surprise, he supposed. They had left Aria only a day ago.
The first town came into view little over an hour later, spires rising above the treeline as Kai pulled Lunar into a walk beside Harper.
"This must be Damarel," she said. Her face was grim; they all knew what they would see in a few moments. Damarel was larger than Eelry or Larnwick—a third the size of Aria, by the looks of it. Walls stretched around the town, five meters high but made of wood rather than stones.
Lord Canmore had sent letters to many surrounding towns and holdfasts, just the day after the siege. Damarel had not replied.
And there, outside the walls, lay men in black armor. They were dead, but that did not calm the fire raging in Kai's heart. The bodies outside of the town couldn't have been more than a hundred, but confirmed his suspicions. Damarel had not had time to evacuate—the Dark Army had likely raided them before attacking Aria.
"They must have sent a small portion of their men to destroy Damarel—and giants, it seems." Harper's voice came out as a whisper. Indeed, a massive figure lay atop a broken section of the wooden wall, arrows sticking from its body like needles in cloth.
Most of the walls on the eastern side of the town had been smashed to the ground, likely by giants. Many of the large wooden posts were burned black, a small taste of what lay beyond. It was like the destruction of Larnwick, only much, much larger. Debris and ash covered the streets, houses little more than rubble. Any smoke had long since dispersed.
Kai's eyes widened as he rode through the city's main gate, which lay wide open. Perhaps he had been wrong—Damarel had met a different fate than Larnwick. Corpses littered the ground in areas that must have once been city squares, features unrecognizable. Kai knelt before one, stomach reeling at the person's blackened face. A ribbon of white shone through the burnished flesh—teeth. But he had not come to see if there were survivors—no, they were certainly dead. He had known from the moment he'd seen them, meters away. He felt the corpse's neck with a gloved hand, wincing as he brushed away blackened skin. Beneath it, a deep cut ran through the person's neck—a slit throat.
Kai sighed with relief. "They were killed before being burned," he called out to the rest of the group. Perhaps it shouldn't have mattered to him—they were already dead, after all. But it did matter. Knowing that this person, and likely thousands more within the city, had not been tortured before death lifted a weight from his shoulders.
"They did not endure hell before they died, but they were killed nevertheless," Sean said, face grim. "This body is weeks old... I doubt that we will find any survivors, but we must hope."
Kai nodded, standing to climb back atop Lunar as the group set off through the city, swords drawn and eyes alert.
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They looked for hours and found no one. The city was massive, and it soon became clear that searching every house would be impossible. Instead, the group rode in pairs, splitting up as they scanned Damarel. It seemed that the army had simply slaughtered people where they stood, burning the city around their corpses. Some enemy soldiers had died, but not many. Tens of thousands of corpses were scattered from one end of the city to another; less than two-hundred wore dark, scorched armor. The death was concentrated in some areas; an attempt to fight back had been made, but without many soldiers, armor or weapons, Damarel had stood no chance. The city was a ruin, its people a distant memory. And so the journey began.